


Exposed

by victoriagrayson



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Black Widow Cuddles, Clint Barton being broody, Dottie Being a Mother, F/F, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Possessive Dottie, Protective Natasha Romanov, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriagrayson/pseuds/victoriagrayson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Natasha's exposed her world, she isn't sure how to proceed. Who better to help a Little Widow weave a new web than a Big Widow whose got 60+ years on her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exposed

**Author's Note:**

> My first AO3 and first Marvel fic so please be gentle.
> 
> Dottie Underwood and Natasha Romanov belong to Marvel and ABC Television respectively. Spoilers for and up to Agent Carter 1.07 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
> 
> They are not mine. So not mine. This idea came to me after the latest episode of Agent Carter when I got to thinking about "what if" Leviathan got away with Steve's blood and what would Nat do if she knew that Dottie was still alive in 2015. I also wanted a sort of mother figure for Nat and some cuddles. Or the Black Widow equivalent which I assume are still cuddles but just with handcuffs involved.
> 
> Thanks to Lilly for beta-ing.

She was exposed. The Widow skin the only thing protecting her from what was to come next. Somewhere in the back of her mind a small cry at being stripped bare came from a little girl that she might have known once, might have even _been_ once, but as quick as she'd came the little girl disappeared back into the web of her mind and she realized where she needed to go to make sense of things, to be told how to proceed.

Even though she had uploaded everything she was to the web, the intelligence community was still hilariously trapped by over 60 years worth of the lies the Widows had weaved. They didn't have everything and even if they did they likely wouldn't be able to make sense of it. They can't tell a Widows fronts from their backs and those remaining Widows are even better at hiding than they are at seeking so while some believe that Widows could be re-purposed and used for both good and nefarious means others know that it is a near hopeless endeavor. In Natasha's case, they're both right. Fury may have helped her shed her other skins but she deep down would she ever be anything other than a Widow laying in wait? 

As children they are trained not to feel pain, not to show mercy and that to love is an absolute weakness. They were trained in secrets and lies and were stripped of anything that made them whatever they were before, leaving only room for the Widow. But what was she now? All her secrets and names laid bare for the world to see, her misdeeds and her orders available to anyone who wanted to know. There was nowhere to hide among those she once called team mates, co-workers, and even those she might have called friends had she not been a Red Room child.. So what do spiders so when they have no more web left to cling to?

They start a new one. So when a Little Widow eventually found her way to the doorstep of a Big Widow, wanting answers to questions long forgotten and quietly asks in a language she so rarely gets to use what she's to do next - what is the Big Widow to do except let her into her web and attempt to un-weave strands they both never thought they would tug on again so that the Little Widow can weave again.

Being here now though, with Her, would raise a lot of questions when she got back, if she went back. Right now her brain felt like eggs and she couldn't think that far. They would have told her that there had been absolutely no need to go running into the web of another Widow but she had anyway, willingly. Fury told her to do this on her own but even he was getting help from someone else... So why couldn't she go to someone who knew what she was like, who in a different life may have been like a mother figure to her.

As "Dottie" sat next to her on the chaise with her hands clasped, waiting patiently for Natasha to start talking, Natasha briefly entertained the thought that this had been a bad idea. But as the older woman looked into her eyes and she looked back at a face that looked only a few years older than her own did, Natasha remembered that just as each Winter Soldier kept watch over a group of Little Widows, there had always been a Big Widow to go with him. She had been _Hers_ , always Hers.

Clint brooded in the corner and had stared at the two of them together all night as they began to talk in hushed tones, silently taking in how close they sat, how their knees briefly brushed together when they moved, how she Natasha allowed the other woman to inspect her for lingering injuries and eventually came to hold her hand in place at the base of Natasha's neck, squeezing it gently in a symbol that hadn't been lost on any of them. As the other woman's hand traced along its path, she noted how Barton's hands would clench and relax as if he was waiting for something to snap but did he realize that if her Big Widow really meant her harm, she might already be just another body on the floor? That he would be next? 

She hadn't wanted him to come, he was intruding and even though her Big Widow wouldn't say anything in front of him, Natasha felt a small wave of shame that she had brought someone else into her "mother's" web without permission. This was hers and hers alone, not another mission for them. She wasn't a child anymore and she didn't need another Soldier watching over her. Tomorrow she would tell him to leave but right now her focuses were pulled elsewhere by a small but powerful thread of web held by fingers that had killed so many and by eyes that had tricked the most hardened of men with their charm.

That night and only once the big oaf of an archer is asleep in the next room, mouth hanging open and spittle forming at the corner of his mouth, do the Big and Little Widow retire to a room of their own, laying side by side both with an arm holding the bars of the headboard, watching the other for the slight of hand they're habitually is sure is to come.

But it doesn't. And the Little Widow isn't sure why, she's as much a threat as the Big Widow now, especially now that all of her secrets have been laid bare for the world and she tells her as much, which earns her a soft chuckle in response. She knew should be irritated at being laughed at, after all isn't this what Yelena was constantly feeling when they were younger, like she was the second best in the room, but she knew she wasn't. She never felt second best to Her. She felt **equal**. 

Even though Big Widow had come long before her, she was one of the first of them, the only to her knowledge to have created a path to the future by way of Steve's blood but that didn't bother her as much as it should have either. Other than the Soldier, who as they lay there was back in a S.H.I.E.L.D lab getting his brain unscrambled, who but another Widow would _understand_ and even though the woman the world knew as Dottie Underwood had died a long time ago, the woman who she'd become now was laying next to her with a mind as clear as day. 

Whether it had been the blood or something else, she'd done it on her own, reconstructed herself from the ground up over the decades and somehow managed to keep the other skins at bay and for someone who had been so feared, so unhinged, so distanced from everything.. It was impressive, inspiring even but Natasha would never admit that out loud. Dottie Underwood might have been gone but the Big Widow had worked tirelessly to spin a brand new web for herself, something just as deadly she was sure. Seeing her now, like this, Natasha wanted this kind of freedom again, but she'd been this current skin for so long - did she even have another in her? She hadn't needed another with Fury.

For now she knew Dottie was content to watch her attempt to sort it out on her own, after all taking initiative was something they both had been taught early on, but eventually she would tire of watching Natasha fail and she would caress her cheek once before flipping her over and starting to wipe the slate clean, breaking her once again. 

It wasn't love, motherly or otherwise and Natasha would never try and say that it was but it was.. something else all together. Something protective and deadly to those who got in the way, like Clint, who would no doubt have about a million and one problems with this in the morning as she kicked him out the door with a map and told him to go home before crawling back into bed with Dottie. Everyone knew Widows were born and trained to kill and sometimes that meant killing their own, but only Widows knew that sometimes, just sometimes, they could find a small measure of comfort and grounding in each other's presence and that was their secret to keep. 

So when a soft hand brushes her hair behind her ear and orders her to stop thinking and sleep, Natasha complies instantly. For in this Widow's web right now, she knew she was where she was supposed to be, her belly exposed to someone who just as deadly and that for at least tonight, was showing her she was equal and that she was safe. But if she were to die at the hands of her Big Widow right now or instead woke up curled in her arms, it would be the start of a new web that she was absolutely certain she didn't deserve to be _given_ and in that moment Natasha Romanov had never been more happy that she'd chosen to expose herself.


End file.
